SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms — a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

The Congresswoman is far more eloquent than I could be in reaction to the cowardly, blood-thirsty vote that took place in the Senate yesterday, as 45 traitors voted to block a yes or no vote on…and here Congresswoman Giffords and I differ in what she defines as “common-sense”…on a bill that amounted to the Democrats throwing up their hands and saying, “Fine! YOU write a gun control bill!”

President Obama was rightly angry at the 45 Senators saying, “And unfortunately, this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose, because those lies upset an intense minority of gun owners, and that in turn intimidated a lot of senators.”

There it is: he called them “cowards” to their faces.

Mr. President, it’s time to put some noses to the grindstone. It’s time to make Senators pay for standing up for the deaths of innocent children. It’s time to hurt them where it will hurt the most: in their home states. Pull funding from them. Close military bases. Ramp up whatever discretionary methods you have to make those Senators know that votes have consequences.

Many have said that this bill will do nothing to prevent criminals from getting their hands on more weapons. That tiny minority are idiots. By this logic, we should dismantle all drug laws. All traffic laws. All laws of any kind because good people will obey them anyway, and bad people will ignore them. In other words, we should become Somalia.

Our schools already are, thanks to a domestic terror organization known by the initials “N R A”. And it’s about time we recognized them as such. There’s a reason they won’t even support these pathetic safeguards: many of the members, if not most, have ties to organizations that would be and likely are on domestic terror watchlists.

They are traitors and deserve a traitor’s fate.

I call on Michael Moore to sue under the Freedom of Information Act, for the release of the crime scene photos from Sandy Hook and to feature them in a film that follows up Bowling For Columbine. Make people see the ghastly horror of what’s left of the bodies and faces of those tiny children. Why not? The anti-choice movement does that all the time, with their protest posters. Let’s make those bastards as uncomfortable as they think they make us.

With three years left in your second term, there is precious little you can do legislatively to make your second term bigger than your first, but you can take actions outside of legislation, and I urge you to implement those now. Use that bully pulpit. Bring your oratorical skills to the forefront and begin to change the dialogue in this nation about guns from one of “We’re too scared to stand up to you,” to “There are many more of us than there are of you. Put away your guns.”

And to you, my readers, and to the American people, it’s time now to act. It’s time now to find these Senators and get them out of office, to show that votes have repercussions, and to support whomever runs against them. To do the work that those children no longer can. There are 4 million NRA members. That means there are 326 million Americans of whom more than 90% believe in stronger gun control and putting an end to the tyranny of the NRA.

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing